You smell that? That’s the tangy aroma of 242 years of sweat, blood, and alcohol-fueled tradition dating back to the formation of the Marine Corps by the Second Continental Congress. On Nov. 10, 1775, the Corps’ first piece of historical lore was written when Capt. Samuel Nicholas set up shop in Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern to recruit would-be jarheads.

Since returning from his second deployment to Afghanistan, Army Spc. Scott Miller had been through several stays at a mental health hospital. But after Christmas, the thoughts about taking his own life were joined by new ones about killing members of his unit.

If you screw up your cashier duties at McDonald’s, chances are your boss won’t smoke you, unless he wants a harassment suit brought against him. In the military world, we live by a different set of rules and laws, one in which we forfeit many of our previously enjoyed rights and freedoms. The U.S. armed forces follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a set of legal conventions that was born from the 69 Articles of War in 1775. Although our current rendition of the UCMJ wasn’t signed into law until 1950 by President Harry S. Truman, it sure feels as though some of the punishments contained within its bindings date back to colonial times.